Tag Archives: vitality

Hello everyone! I just completed making a video of my very first Channeled Angel Message. This is kind of an experiment for me–I’m not sure if this is the format I’ll be using for all future videos of this sort but it was very fun putting it together. My plan is to share these on my YouTube Channel for that audience but I thought I’d share it here first. The entire message is also below this video.

Channeled Angel Message 1-12-19

“Dear Ones, You are so loved.If you only knew the brilliance of your own light—the perfection of your being.Your soul has a purpose that may be unknown to you at this time but if you take the time to listen to your heart and write out your soul’s desire, you will begin to know yourself. As you love, nurture, and comfort yourself you will heal those deep layers of pain that are keeping you from stepping into your wholeness and vitality to be all that you can be.

We are with you, Dear Ones, shining light and comfort down on you on those times you feel most alone and afraid.If you can believe in love from above and open to receive our comfort it will help you so much.As light workers you chose to come onto earth at this time as co-creators with us the Angels who are always hovering near you.Your compassionate ways may seem unappreciated by those around you but if you can remember and write and share with others who are open to such spiritual messages, you’ll be spreading hope in ways you can’t imagine.

No-one else is exactly like you but many, who are on similar journeys and just beginning, will so benefit from your wisdom.Keep writing.Keep creating from the joy in your heart and share it with others without fear.The fear of persecution from others is old and we reassure you that the benefits will far exceed any backlash you receive.If you are afraid to be different well, My Dear, you already are and it is what it is for a good reason.Goodness and light exudes from you in a way that affects others in a positive way whether it’s positive feelings being around you or pushing their repressed pain up to the light in an explosive way.This is not for you to decipher or feel responsible for but just know healing is happening.

If you get negative energy back from anyone know it is not about you and it is just a projection of this inner unconscious unlooked-that world. All pain needs to be looked at in order to heal and be released. This is a role that is not for the faint of heart. You are not faint of heart. You are all heart and you are strong enough for this role. By changing the way you view criticisms of you, you can change your life.Criticisms of you are actually criticisms of the person criticizing you—their own self-judgments projected outward.

How to handle this?Smile with your inner knowing of the real truth. Either walk away or show them compassion if you are in a strong place.Let the negativity flow through you and not stick.Transmute it into Mother Earth or up to Heaven it doesn’t matter keep the energy moving flowing and healed and dissolved by love.

Shining your light really is healing. Perhaps you’ve encountered people drawn to you lately and even asking for a hug from you while others seem to treat you as if you are invisible. They actually make themselves invisible from their own true essence—a true and complete disconnect and so you are feeling their invisibility and self-loathing.Know it’s not yours. The work of knowing the voice of your inner critic is so helpful.Yes, you know this.

But you didn’t know your inner critic is alive in you because you absorbed the inner critic of those around you in your foundational childhood years and you internalized it and believed it.Now you know better.You can give yourself the love you never received and deserved.Yes every child deserves love and care and to be uplifted to see their gifts and potential.You can re-frame, re-program, re-parent, and re-live the childhood you never had—Regain the childlike trust you missed out on.Live now with more childlike exuberance, joy, and curiosity and express yourself without fear.

Know your childlike exuberance is much needed on the planet as you express it without fear of ridicule and shame.Yes, you may have been shamed for shining your light as a child but now you see their fear, their shame that they felt safe to put on you.Only because of your light, My Dear Earthbound Angels, only because of your light.

Archangel Muriel here,

sending you hugs and love and comfort so deep you feel it down to your toes.

We angels are just a thought away

Just open to us and get out of the way

To receive our message especially for you

So you can heal and heal others too.

Until we meet again,

Muriel”

If you are interested in scheduling private sessions for Akashic Record Readings, or Angel Readings, Distance Reiki or Life Coaching sessions please email me at truevoicelifecoach@ymail.com.

Please give me feedback about the video. Was it too fast or too slow? Was the music annoying or not your cup of tea? Any tips to change how I present these channelings to the people who enjoy them would be very helpful.

Hello everyone. I hope you are able to enjoy the holidays and find some inner peace and joy in just “being wonderful, sensitive YOU!”. For highly sensitive souls, the holidays can be difficult, especially if you are triggered easily due to PTSD from childhood trauma. I relate, however, many big breakthroughs have been happening for myself. I have been wanting to write and connect with you all about all the self discovery and healing I am learning about and how it’s making profound shifts in my own life–I am always listening to my inner guidance and growing. It’s an amazing process once you get on a roll. One day while journaling, the following information just poured out of me from my inner guidance and I knew it was meant to share on this blog. Here it is:

“You can recover from PTSD from childhood trauma.It’s not easy. It’s step by step. Yes, it really is about putting one foot in front of the other-wading through the feelings and voicing your truth.When you have PTSD from trauma in childhood it is your root chakra that continually needs help in your life. This is about getting your legs underneath you, standing strong on your own 2 feet, and feeling safe.It’s about moving forward towards your dreams.It’s about feeling solid, centered, grounded, and safe for your soul to stay in your body.When you voice your deep fears and the truth about their origins to a safe person, it validates you to feel safe and be “in” your body—perhaps for the first time.”

I didn’t know I wasn’t in my body until 2011 and I had memories of terror come up when I was laid up with some health problems. I had to cry and re-experience the terror with a safe person holding my hand as I voiced the truth of what happened to me. Realizing it was from childhood and not in the present is part of the relief—you realize you are not dying or going to die from the emotional pain (which is what a child believes) but just releasing a repressed trauma.Afterwards, I had a new sensation and a knowing that I was stronger—I proclaimed, “OMG! I feel like I am in my body for the first time!” I never forgot this moment and I was amazed—you realize the profound shifts that emotional healing can evoke.It propels you to keep feeling more and more of your repressed pain and release it as it comes up.

After this you begin to understand you are building a foundation (healing your root chakra)—a solid foundation is being laid down brick by brick.It takes time and patience and deep love for yourself.You are lovable and you have always been.You deserve to feel safe and whole and vital.You can overcome all of your fears and step into your whole true self.You are on your way!

More helpful guidance for highly sensitive souls on the way in 2019! Happy New Year to you all!! It’s gonna be a great year!!!

Hi everyone. Today I want to talk about the special complexity of being both a high achiever and Intuitive, and a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and how this combination of academic giftedness, and a deep thinking facility can lead to avoidance and a numbness in regard to emotions.

What I have come to learn about healing is that it is often so difficult to begin when, as highly intuitive (highly sensitive) children, we have spent most of our lives trying not to be so “sensitive”, and to fit into the rest of society, that, at least in the American Culture that exists today, being sensitive is not the “ideal”. There exists a pressure to be extraverted, social, superficial, constantly busy, productive and able to produce and work hard no matter what is going on in our lives. Also the word sensitive is often used synonomously with the word “insecure” and that is not at all what is meant here. Sensitivity (Intuition) is a gift and it causes you to experience everything in life at a deeper, richer level. Less sensitive others may outnumber us and put it down but they are just plain wrong!

Because of ridicule of our budding sensitive selves early in life, we have hidden away the part of us that “feels” and have become very good at being successful and “thinking” our way out of problems and “thinking” our way to finding a cure for the emptiness and loneliness we sometimes feel. So we keep seeking out superficial relationships and experiences, looking for some “one” or fun experiences that will be the answer to our discontent.

Also we try to fill our time with busy tasks that satisfy our immediate need for validation and often this is through technology, being constantly plugged in to our computers or phones, being news junkies, texting, video games, watching television etc. All of these tasks seem to keep us going through another empty day of being out of touch with who we really are and help to keep us in a state of numbness that was a state of survival for us as highly sensitive children.

The problems that crop up in our lives are clues to the fact that this superficial state of existence is not really working for us and we need to make a change. For example, it is often a shock to us when we have relationship problems with others because we, for the most part see nothing wrong with how we are functioning and relating to others. When you have spent your life avoiding painful feelings you begin to believe that you have no real problems at all and everything would just be fine if people would do things your way—the logical way. It isn’t until others in our lives complain about our emotional unavailability that we even see that there is a problem at all.

Other problems that may crop up from not being in touch with our emotional side are that you may be out of touch or blocked from fully utilizing your creativity and this can lead to a feeling of dissatisfaction with the work that you are doing. Also, when you are dissatisfied with your work because it is unfulfilling on a deeper emotional level, gradually it saps your energy.

You may also “over-work” to continue numbing out your feelings because you are out of touch with your feelings that tell you a natural time to stop and you are not listening to your body. When you over-work at an unfulfilling job you run on adrenaline a lot from stress. This causes your body to produce too much cortisol which can mess up the balance of hormones and cause you to have less energy. motivation, and even feel semi-depressed (possible symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue or “burnout”). This can cause you to become overwhelmed with even simple tasks in your life that you just don’t have the motivation or energy to do anymore.

This is worsened when you are highly intuitive (sensitive) in that you are constantly taking in more stimuli than other people who are not intuitive. You may be comparing yourself constantly to less intuitive (less sensitive) others and you get overwhelmed trying to do what everyone else seems to be able to do. Intuitives are only 15 to 20% of the population and it will help you so much if you embrace that it is a gift that sets you apart and you are different for a reason. You must make allowances for your need for breaks and time alone to recharge–even extraverts who are highly intuitive (sensitive) need to cut back on their “list of shoulds” because they are taking in more stimuli than extraverted others. Just realizing you “require” more rest and more time to recharge and regroup when you are in a stressful job can be quite a relief–especially for this group that tends to be harder on themselves anyway and want badly to succeed and be the best at their jobs which are often technology based.

Getting access to your emotional side and out of the left-brained thinking side which you exist in most of the time will help you to feel more satisfaction and joy in your life and at work and have more fulfilling connections with others.

This is not easy but it is so worth the effort because the end result is the connection to the real you—the emotional side of yourself that is the connection to the source of all love and compassion which is a higher power/universal consciousness/or “God”! Now I know I may have lost some of you just now because your scientific mind refuses to believe in something so intangible and illogical. However, if you do some research you will find that some of the greatest minds including Albert Einstein believed in a spiritual creative universal consciousness that could be tapped into. This can be achieved by believing in your self and your dreams and requires a certain amount of “emotional self-discovery” and healing of those blocks which keep us from feeling things on a deep level.

When you work through the blocks that keep you from enjoying your life on a deep level you can overcome compulsive behaviors such as perfectionism, over-working, and procrastination as well. These behaviors often result because you are trying to do too many things and have unrealistic expectations of your highly sensitive self–you may try to “overcome” your sensitivity if you look at it as a weakness or you may try to ignore it–but it is innate in you and it will always be there!

As I said before, it is better to embrace it and surrender to it and see it as the gift that it really is–a higher level of creativity and vision will be available to you at your work if you finally start taking care of your extra needs for sleep, time alone, and down time from the left side of your brain. You will be able to tap into your creative genius as a visionary at work if you do some things that help you tap into the right side of your brain–the creative, emotional, and spiritual side. Operating with access to both sides of your brain is so important for balance in your life and in your health and vitality. Makes logical sense, right?

My recommendation is Journaling–writing out your feelings, whatever they are, negative or positive, daily in a journal for your eyes only–because it is a scientific fact that writing in order to express your “feelings” opens up neural pathways to the right side of your brain. It is a channel to the creative side of your life which is the key to a fulfilling connection to your true self and to a source of love we are all capable of experiencing as humans on this planet.

You can do this yourself by following the journaling guidelines in the book, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. It is a course in discovering and recovering your creative self and I highly recommend it–I did these “morning pages” myself as part of my own recovery. I have written some other posts on how journaling has helped me and I have referred to it as my own inner grief work and the process of “growing a backbone”. My husband (an INTJ) journals for healing and was amazed at it’s effect and referred to the process as “growing a new heart”. The outcome of this kind of journaling is as unique for the person as the uniqueness of the person doing the writing.

The truth is you need to be able to love your self in order to give love to others and that is necessary in order to be happy and fulfilled in your life and in your work. You may be saying, “I love myself already”, but it may be more of a sense of entitlement for things and success and a superficial love for self. What I am talking about is loving all of you including the parts of yourself that you are cut off from and avoid–the feelings that make you uncomfortable–shame, sadness, despair, loneliness, and anger etc.. These are feelings that we all feel for a reason and the reason needs to be acknowledged along with the feelings so that you can express them and ultimately release them and heal them. When you allow painful feelings to be expressed at the core of when they occurred and for the reason that they occurred then you are connecting to the truth that you blocked from your memory. A block such as this is always going to keep you from being able to experience full joy and happiness in your life until you work through it.

Often these blocks were formed in childhood. If you were a highly sensitive child in an environment where your parents were already overwhelmed with dealing with their own feelings, then you may have shut off your feelings and repressed them in order to “be good” and helpful to your parents. Sometimes we were so gifted and so intuitive that we were able to shut down our feeling sides without the memory of any real trauma from childhood but just because we constantly told ourselves that our feelings didn’t matter. We then have a “belief” that we are no more than this false self that we created to survive—when in actuality there is a whole other rich and emotional side to us that is begging for our attention!

Problems that come up in our lives are clues to this other side of our life that needs healing. Gary Zukav, author of the Seat of the Soul, is a physicist who embraces the spiritual side of his life and believes that the way to feeling wholeness is by excavating our feelings as if we are an archeologist looking for clues and answers to “why”. The answers are inside of us and often are because of events that occurred in our childhood that keep us stuck at the emotional level that we were at the time the event occurred.

Often, things that happened in childhood were unbearably painful and we had to repress them in order to survive them. To “repress” is to completely deny them and remove them from our consciousness! Journaling helps to bring them forth and allow us to discover things about us that are important clues to how to be happy in life!

Remember, the opposite of depression is not happiness but “vitality” which is the ability to express and let flow the full spectrum of emotions—the negative uncomfortable ones as well as positive and easy ones. (Alice Miller–The Drama of the Gifted Child). I hope this information has been helpful to you.

Hi everyone. Today I want to write about a subject that many of my clients and readers can relate to as Highly Sensitive People. It is something called Learned Helplessness. Learned Helplessness is that feeling of powerlessness that we all feel at times, and for some of us it is more pervasive and all encompassing than for others. There is much hope in talking about it because if you can understand the roots of this feeling, you can understand that it is “learned” behavior and that you can become aware of it when it hits you and ultimately heal from it completely.

I first heard about Learned Helplessness in my introductory psychology class in college. And you probably have heard the story as well–the story of Pavlov’s dog. Pavlov used a dog in an experiment in human behavior to demonstrate the result of conditioning. I can’t recall the exact details except that the dog was given rewards or withheld the rewards and the resulting behavior of the dog was recorded and studied. There were other dog experiments by a psychologist named Seligman in which he shocked sets of dogs to demonstrate learned behavior and conditioning and punishment.

The main thing I remember vividly about the whole thing was that at the end of the Seligman experiments, the dogs were shocked repeatedly both when they completed a task correctly and also when they did not. The poor dogs were so confused that they layed down depressed and GAVE UP and even whined–and this was Learned Helplessness that the dogs were experiencing. I still remember learning about this vividly because I felt SO bad for these dogs–I was empathizing and upset beyond what the average person reading this would expect to be.

At that time in college I did not have the insight or self-awareness yet to realize it was because I resonated so much personally with how the dogs were treated. As a highly sensitive, empathetic person I knew just how those dogs must have felt and I related to them giving up and laying down, hopeless, and helpless, in fear, and self-doubt. Those dogs were experiencing the same damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t no-win situation that those who were bullied consistently (or even neglected or controlled) by a caretaker or narcissistic or controlling parent were subjected to day in and day out as children. Years later I remember talking to a counselor about this, knowing just how a dog in those experiments must have felt and it helped the counselor have a picture of the frustration, fear, desperation, loneliness, despair, hopelessness, and helplessness.

After I voiced this to the counselor, I was able to picture myself as a small child with the same compassion I had for such a dog and finally realized that I deserved so much more. The roots of my anxiety were then exposed–no wonder I felt anxious all the time, no wonder I was a perfectionist and afraid to disappoint anyone, no wonder I didn’t know how to relax, no wonder I had no access to my own dreams and desires and was filled with self-doubts and negative messages in my head. It helped to talk to someone about how I felt what I experienced could compare to the treatment of those dogs–the feeling of not being given consistent love and support and feeling rewarded only if obedient and punished with emotional rejection if not.

My life coaching experiences and studies have taught me the following in regards to those highly sensitive people with a narcissistic parent: The Scapegoat child of a N parent can very much relate to this constant punishment and criticism. But the Golden Child (GC) can relate as well because they are often the obedient one who needs desperately some kind of loving approval and, out of fear, becomes what the parent or wants for them to become. Outwardly to others it may appear as if the GC has it all–the love, attention and admiration of the Narcissistic parent. But inside there is so much emptiness and pain, an absence of the knowledge of self and true feelings–feelings that had to be hidden away because they were too painful to bear. The false self is developed and honed in, the GC knows exactly how their N parent feels even before they do. The GC develops a radar that helps them to survive the lack of love and support–and they develop an illusion that they are the ones at fault if, even with their best efforts, they fail to win the acceptance of the N parent. They blame themselves and have very low self-esteem, crushed by criticism, holding relationships at arms length so no one will get too close and cause them further pain.

The roots of co-dependence are also linked to this learned helplessness–victims of such abuse telling themselves that there must be something wrong with them and that they are deeply flawed and it usually goes in one of two ways–either they decide they need to find another person to love them and take care of them and then they will be happy (co-dependence) or they become a porcupine not letting anyone one else near, lashing out at anyone who suspects that they just might have some insecurities underneath their outwardly successful yet workaholic exterior shell. People who suffer from panic attacks and even agoraphobia often have learned helplessness from childhood as a root cause as well.

“What can a person do?” you may be asking if you relate to what I am describing. Plenty! Just being aware and believing that this happened to you as a child is the first step. Just as you have compassion for the dogs in the experiments, you need to develop this same compassion for yourself and make a decision to stop being so hard on yourself. Make a decision to be kind to yourself every time you are feeling bad–it is almost always childhood pain coming up to tell you the truth of what really happened to you. Become aware that the negative messages in your head were put there by someone else and that you did not deserve them. Change them to positive messages. Write in a journal all the things you were good at as a child and never given credit for. Writing out the truth is powerful and go back and read it often to remind yourself.

It takes time so be patient with yourself. Taking baby steps in the direction of healing is wise because there is pain to work through and release but you can do it! You have many gifts and talents that have never been acknowledged yet and only you can bring them out from their repressed state of Learned Helplessness.

Whether you were the scapegoat in your family or the obedient golden child, you can heal from the trauma of Learned Helplessness. Often people who experience post traumatic stress from an abusive childhood fall into this state of learned helplessness when their wounds are triggered. It can feel like an inability to function, a numbness–but sometimes the feelings along with that are a mix of rage and despair.

If you have lashed out at loved ones with an intensity beyond what is appropriate then you probably were a victim of a person that controlled you in an abusive way far far too much with no remorse. If you were extremely sensitive (extremely emotionally gifted 🙂 ), just a mean look from his/her eyes could cause a traumatic reaction in you as a child and the fear may have felt like a spear through your heart. The rage and despair you feel is understandable and appropriate but needs to be directed, voiced, and released at the person that did this too you in a journal, letter that won’t be sent, and/or perhaps even read outloud with a safe witness friend, counselor, or coach present (never to them or to their face) . You will find a sense of relief each time you release some of this truth and the light inside of you will become brighter and brighter and you will feel lighter and lighter. You will begin to experience the essence of your true self and the vitality you deserve. This is the process of healing. Don’t hold onto the anger and resentment that comes up but release it completely each time, visualizing the negative emotions going up to heaven or into the earth,whichever appeals most, to be healed by love and light–Imagine love and light coming to you as well to replace these negative emotions each time to center yourself again to a peaceful state.

Why did you experience learned helplessness while your siblings did not? Perhaps you had the gift of high sensitivity and along with that the knowledge and expectation of a higher level of love. And when you did not receive this love that you innately knew existed, you had no choice but to blame yourself because…it made no sense to you. Your siblings possibly just got mad at your parents and rebelled–they may have had no higher vision of a loving existence so it didn’t feel as traumatic to them.

So you see, the cure and the answer to all of your self-doubt and learned helplessness is LOVE. Love yourself as you deserved to be loved and give yourself the love that you so easily give to others because that is your gift. Compassion and love for yourself will help you overcome all of the many symptoms of Learned Helplessness just as consistent love and affection and kindness would help Seligman’s abused dogs to learn to trust people and trust themselves again. I hope my words have been helpful to you.

Hi everyone. I hope you are able to enjoy the beauty in the spring flowering trees and all of the splashes of purple and pink that are so breathtaking–at least they are here where I am located. Wherever you are, I am grateful for the technology of the internet that helps me to feel as if I am connected to you–all of you who are highly sensitive and have endured a less than healthy environment during your formative years. I understand your struggle to make sense of the self-doubt and negative messages in your heads and of the occasional upheaval of childhood wounds that are sometimes too painful to bear. I used to feel that way–I have come such a long way from self-doubt to finding my voice as a person and knowing my true purpose in life. I can still remember the pain and confusion and sometimes I still have wounds that come up and surprise me. The difference is, now, I am no longer blocked and afraid of feeling my feelings and I am able to release them and comfort my inner child through them much faster and with positive results. This took many years but I am hoping I can help you to feel supported and encouraged by my sharing what I learned to get me from there to here.

One of the first things I remember vividly about my painful journey was reading Alice Miller’s book, The Drama of the Gifted Child. I was 28 when I first heard about this book and started reading it with the feeling that finally someone understands what I can not seem to put into words yet. The parts of this book that were most helpful to me was when she, the author, talked about her own struggles, her own denial about her abuse as a child, and her own ultimate acknowledgement of her childhood pain that she had suppressed until the age of 48. That is when she started doing spontaneous painting and began painting out her pain. Mind you, she had Ph.D’s in Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology and was a practicing Psychoanalyst when she said that it was her own patients and her own innate compassion for what they were going through that made her look at her own life and begin to question her psychoanalytic training. She then started writing about inner child healing and about her discoveries about her own and her patients’ emotional childhood wounds–she wrote about how speaking their truth to an empathetic listener (enlightened witness) helped them to free themselves from their inner prison of self-doubt and loneliness. I used to have to read parts of this book over and over because the concepts were just outside of my comprehension. But each time I would read it I would grasp a new concept and then feel much comfort and relief.

TIP #1: One of the things I learned that really helped me a lot was when she said that “loneliness is a symptom of the traumatic separation from the true self in early childhood”. There are people who are alone who do not feel lonely at all; in fact they feel whole and complete and have much love to give because they have access to their true selves, their feelings, their voice as a person. This gave me so much hope–that this loneliness I felt was not my fault but the result of something that happened to me–something that was taken away from me as a result of a survival mechanism that I had before but I just cannot recall ever having it–this true self. When I think back 20 years ago and realize that I have now been able to recall and acknowledge that traumatic separation and access my true self and have compassion for the self that I lost as a child, it is just amazing to me and I want so much to help others to regain their vitality as I did.

That brings me to another helpful quote from her book that I will never forget:

TIP #2: It is that the opposite of depression is not happiness. The opposite of depression is “vitality and the ability to spontaneously express all the feelings of your true self” as they come up and release them. For me this concept was monumental in that happiness was no longer a goal of mine and I could relax and just work on releasing my feelings whatever they were so they would become unblocked and I would feel relief. This just reinforced me to continue journaling out my feelings even further which I had been encouraged to do by my wonderful first counselor at the age of 23. I couldn’t find an enlightened witness to talk to about my childhood pain but I would write out my truth and become my own enlightened witness. Whenever I felt blocked (depressed) I would write out my pain and find relief in my own compassionate heart. Alice Miller’s words helped me discover my own compassion because she paved the way with her own compassionate heart for others and then for herself. She was truly a pioneer in her time of validating one’s truth and finding our true self through compassion for the painful childhoods we endured that caused our feelings to become repressed–our truth was hidden from even ourselves because it was too painful to bear as children.

Many other famous psychologists have used her concepts and quotes in their books including John Bradshaw and his book on internalized shame and Charles Whitfield’s book called Healing the Child Within. Both of these books are included in my Recommended Books section under PAGES.

Alice Miller became famous because of her books and decided to take a public stand against child abuse of all kinds including corporal punishment (spanking) in schools and in homes too of course. She has a website which just this month she posted her last comment in the readers’ mail section that said, due to her ill health, she will no longer be able to maintain her website. She is 87 years old and I feel so sad about this. I am hoping you will visit her website at www.alice-miller.com. She is leaving it up and available so it will continue to help others. All of her books are wonderful and I highly recommend them for anyone with childhood pain issues and even if you do not recall any childhood abuse but still suffer from self-doubt and depression–it could be that your lack of memory (repression) is protecting you from the truth and her books will inspire in you a compassion for yourself that will make a difference in your life. That is certainly what happened for me. Compassion for what happened to us as highly sensitive children is just the beginning of the end to our suffering from deep loneliness. And it is the beginning of a life filled with vitality and love for ourselves. And when we finally can love ourselves as we truly deserve, then we have the energy to share our hopes and desires and gifts with others and that, my friends, is our true purpose in life!

Quite a few of you find my website by searching the terms “I have never been loved” and “hsps and emotional pain.” I hope that you feel much comfort and support when you read of my own struggle and journey and read the lyrics to my songs of hope and healing. The Number One most clicked on song lyrics by far are for the song “I Have Never Been Loved Before” so I am sharing this link with you today. I hope it brings you the hope and healing you deserve on your journey to finding your true purpose and your voice as a person. As a highly sensitive, highly gifted, and compassionate soul, your voice is so needed on this planet! I am grateful for your beautiful soul!

Hi everyone. I’m happy to be back. I had a wonderful vacation and it is also great to be back home. I am feeling renewed and energetic now (five days after we returned) but I was extremely exhausted when we first got back. And my husband bounced right back after like one day–and so, comparing myself to him, I was feeling very much lost and empty and discouraged…. and then started wondering how will I ever write another post and even…how did I ever write all that stuff I already wrote–I was spiraling negative thoughts again–my inner critic took over! And it was so hard to decipher–I just felt bad and exhausted with no hope in sight. So I wrote in my journal and it helped!–so I thought I would share with you my technique.

First of all, in journaling you must tell yourself that no one is going to read this ever! –and mean it and believe it. Then you let loose with all your feelings. I started out saying ” I feel horrible! I can’t remember who I am or how to feel good.” Within 2 sentences though I remembered, ” I used to feel this way all the time as a child.” And then, “Oh yes this is childhood pain coming up to heal. I just had a wonderful vacation! My inner child is expecting to be punished.” Then my own compassion kicks in with ” I need to be extra nice to myself. I am being too hard on myself. Do nice things for myself today. I am a highly sensitive person. No wonder I am tired–vacations are highly stimulating–just give myself extra time. Everything is going to be okay.” Before long I am cheering myself up. I have over-ridden my inner critic–that negative voice inside my head. This process always amazes me because I feel like I should be “fixed” by now and should never feel bad again. But that is the negative voice in my head–the pressure from my mother to “be happy — just get over it, you are too sensitive blah, blah, blah.” That is the opposite of what I needed as a highly sensitive child. On vacations I would get overwhelmed, over-tired with all the new sights and activities. I know I deserved kindness instead of impatience, rest instead of guilt for slowing them down, compassion for my ability to see the beauty in the small things like nature instead of annoyance about my questions and my disappointment in their lack of carefulness with my feelings. There was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me now. My only mistake was believing them when they blamed me. I don’t believe them and choose to be around people who are safe and kind and who like me easily. My husband is one of those people and was the first to remind me to not be so hard on myself and to take it easy. He was right.

Do not be discouraged if this technique of journaling does not come so easily to you yet. This takes a long time and lots of effort deciphering the truth of what you went through and what you truly deserved as a highly sensitive child. The book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is SO helpful in guiding people through the journaling process that helps unblock creativity (finding your voice and your true self!)

Many different techniques help me to find my voice and vitality again. Sometimes it is playing my songs when I am feeling so lost I don’t remember being able to write songs. Reading your own journal helps too especially if you are the kind of journaler who ends up feeling hopeful after you write. (You have to make yourself do it–it doesn’t come natural to read your own stuff when you are feeling bad about yourself–you’ll be surprised how your own words lift your spirits.) Other times I read books or blogs by people with a compassionate voice and I recover my own compassionate voice. Elaine Aron wrote the book on “The Highly Sensitive Person” and was the catalyst that started the HSP support groups that have grown and spread in cities and online. Online, I read her article on “the problem of bearing an unbearable emotion” that she wrote in her newsletter for Feb. 2006 and I immediately felt “found and validated” just by her compassionate words–my energy came back and I was excited about my life again. I hope my blog does the same for you.

I was fortunate to have some time to find myself and work on myself and read self-help books and write in journals while my children were growing up because my husband was so grateful that I was home raising emotionally healthy kids–he is a “thinking” type although a highly sensitive guy (an INTJ), whereas I am a “feeling” type (an INFJ). (See the book by Keirsey and Bates in my Recommended Books section for a test on temperament types.) He had an even more difficult childhood than I did and is grateful for my compassionate ways. When I think of how far I have come, it feels rather miraculous so I want so much to help others who are as lost and hiding as I was. I believe that those of us who are the most sensitive and almost destroyed are an important resource to this planet if we can join together and rise up as a voice of love, peace, and compassion. The fact that you are feeling beaten down is the very indicator that your sensitive ways have been misunderstood and need to be put to better use. All you need is a witness to validate the injustices you have suffered and then you can rise up and start speaking your mind and being a messenger of compassion that the world needs. DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE! You are exactly the way you are supposed to be. Be kind to yourself and learn to love yourself.

Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life is a book I have been reading on and off for 15 years. The positive affirmations in her book I use daily now but felt so foreign to me when I first got the book. One of my favorites is “I give myself permission to be the best that I can be”. Growing up I was not allowed to express my authentic self (or be my best) because it threatened my narcissistic mother and she would withdraw her love and approval. My mother was jealous of my many gifts. I didn’t know I had any gifts at all because she was determined to control me and keep me close and, in her view, if I knew I was gifted I might leave her. That whole concept was hard for me to grasp because it would never occur to me to be that way or be jealous of a child of mine–it is my responsibility to help my child see all his/her gifts and how special he/she is. So this explains why I couldn’t have compassion for myself–I trusted so completely in my mother. And also then came the question “why would God give me a mother who was so manipulative and unloving?” That was another chapter in my life that I now have completely resolved. God did not arrange for me to have this emotional pain and hardship but has given me the inner strength and compassion to overcome it and become strong. Had I not had a mother like that I would not be reaching out to help others who also experienced a mother like that right now in this moment.

In this moment, I am happy and complete and grateful for all the pain I went through to make me this strong. But while I was in the pain and lost and alone and not knowing how to let God’s love in, I was not grateful–no way! But there was a pivotal moment when I was crying in despair that I became aware that no one but me was going to rescue me–of the two of us, my husband and I, I was the stronger one emotionally. Something Eckhart Tolle said in his book A New Earth helped a lot. He said something to the effect of… I am not all that happens to me–I am ” the presence” that observes all that happens to me…. It made me realize I am not this abused child who is forever a victim. I am all the wisdom from what I have learned from it and can comfort my inner abused child through it. I still keep learning it over and over and each time it gets easier to find myself again. So do not give up. You who are hiding and afraid to speak up–it’s okay and you have every right to be afraid. But that it is not all of you. You have a gift, a wisdom, a compassion, that is sorely needed in the world. Don’t let the bullies and controllers and competitors win. They are not like you and so cannot understand you. But you can understand you! You are on this planet for a reason exactly as you are. Change only the people you are around. Elaine Aron says that HSPs have an easier time overcoming depression just by changing our environment to being around people who love us and accept us as we are. She says “get out of competitive environments where you have to fear that you will be judged, rejected, or seen as a failure, and stay around those who like you.” (see her newsletter the Comfort Zone , and the article called “A Few Happy Things Regarding Depression”). I am adding her website to my blogroll. It is hsperson dot com. I hope I have helped you to feel more hopeful and happy. You deserve it. You are a highly sensitive person and that my friend is a gift. Thank you to my readers.

Professional Qualifications

Hello and welcome! I am an Intuitive and Empathic Life Coach specializing in Inner Child Healing. I have a Bachelors of Science Degree in Child and Family Services with an emphasis in humanistic counseling psychology, family dynamics, and child development. I provide support and guidance for healing childhood wounds and I personally have done my own extensive inner grief work and now I help others do the same. Through this blog, it is a privilege for me to provide comfort and emotional support to any soul who is in emotional pain and to let them know there is hope and someone who understands. I was trained and worked as a peer counselor in college and I have much experience counseling friends and loved ones and now I coach others through my Coaching website truevoicelifecoaching.com. So often a person just needs a companion to listen–someone to validate the complex and confusing painful feelings that come up when childhood wounds are triggered and that keep us from moving forward to becoming our true selves. Through my blog, this community serves as an “enlightened witness” for any person who needs to be heard about childhood wounds or if you have no family members or friends who understand your feelings. We look forward to hearing from you and appreciate ALL comments whether you want to leave a comment regarding the information found here to share your own experiences, or if you feel a connection and want to lend your support for what is said. Thank you to all my readers for your support of this blog. (For more info. please see ABOUT ME) I am now adding Reiki Energy Healing Sessions and Intuitive Readings to my list of services.

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News Flash!

The stigma against Introverts and HSPs is beginning to change on a global level. See the video called The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain on TED.com. Yay Susan!
Go to ted.com and search Susan Cain, then click on her video The Power of Introverts or you can copy and paste this is your browser: http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power
_of_introverts

This is Bill Gates favorite Ted talk! Also, Elaine Aron said that Susan is really talking about highly sensitive people (HSPs)– Even though 30% of HSPs are extraverts. (In my opinion these 30% are highly creative people often with ADD symptoms — they are extremely gifted and unique people not to be seen as needing medication but as a special gift to the planet if they allow themselves to let their creative genius flow and use meditation to find balance from their overstimulation.)

Disclaimer

I am an Intuitive and Empathic Life Coach providing emotional support and intuitive guidance from knowledge gained from my experience helping others and from my own personal healing journey. I am not a licensed mental health counselor and my Life Coaching and the information shared on this blog is not to be considered mental health counseling. I do not diagnose, treat, or cure mental health disorders. My Life Coaching services and the emotional healing information shared here are not to take the place of the advice, care, and evaluation from a licensed mental health counselor, psychologist, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, physician, or other licensed health care provider. Some clients may be referred to a licensed mental health professional.
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The information shown on this website is offered in good faith. Any decisions you make based on this information and the consequences thereof are your own. Under no circumstances can you hold the author of this blog liable for any plans, actions, and/or results of actions that you choose to take.

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